The present invention relates to a device for conveying piece goods, especially sausages or similar goods, with a drivable continuous conveyor belt to a transfer station.
In order to ensure that the piece goods to be transported with such conveying devices remain on the conveying belt at all times the conveying belt is usually provided on one or both longitudinal sides with a limiting device. For this purpose, vertically extending plates are provided next to or above the conveying belt extending in its longitudinal direction. A lateral transport of the conveyed piece goods is thus prevented since these plates are fixedly attached. However, the piece goods often drag along these plates. This results in damages to the piece goods, especially when piece goods, that do not have a sturdy casing such as sausages, are conveyed. Accordingly, a high percentage of damaged goods must be discarded and elaborate and time consuming cleaning processes are necessary, so that in many cases operational shut down periods are necessary.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a device for conveying piece goods of the aforementioned kind with which extremely sensitive piece goods may be reliably transported such that no undesired lateral transport takes place and the piece goods are not damaged at the lateral limiting devices. Without requiring an elaborate construction a device is to be provided with which no relative movement of the piece goods during their transport on the conveying belt with respect to the lateral limiting devices occurs so that a damage to the respective casing of the product is safely prevented. Furthermore, it should be possible to portion the respective piece goods already during the transport and to convey the resulting portioned piece goods safely to a downstream processing device.